Mahnaluntiid
by skyflower51
Summary: 'What if the Divines were mistaken? What if I could never defeat Alduin and save Skyrim? How could an Altmer ever take the place of the legendary Nordic hero...' As night falls on High Hrothgar, a young High Elf with a Nord's spirit and a dragon's soul attempts to come to terms with the fact that he's Dragonborn. And he can't help wondering whether Akatosh made the wrong choice.


**I have four Dragonborns, all of whom I love playing. However, I recently realised that only my Khajiit J'shana has ever appeared in my stories. _Mahnaluntiid _is the first in a series of four short stories, each one of them featuring a different one of my Dragonborns, and giving a quick insight into their lives. I feel a bit like I've been neglecting the other three! **

**By the way, the Draconic words in this chapter come from the dictionary at www. thuum. org (without the spaces.) Since this is partly a fan-made site, I think that some of the words are non-canon.**

**Anyway, I hope you enjoy the story. :)**

* * *

MAHNALUNTIID

He didn't know why he felt like crying.

There was nothing to cry over. No great sorrow, nor even any great joy. He had often found throughout his life, especially when he had been a child, that his tears were seldom shed out of grief. Far more often they tears of anger, and even more often, tears of want.

He thought of how he had shed bitter tears when his adopted father had given him a wooden sword to play with, and he had stumbled and fallen and the sword had snapped against a rock. He remembered crying when the little ship he had made out of sticks and a scrap of cloth had sunk the moment he placed it in water. He recalled, with a pang, weeping for his lost parents - both pairs of them.

Those tears had always been tears of _wanting. _Whether it had been the wanting of a new wooden sword, or the ability to make ships that floated, or his parents back. There had been reasons behind those tears.

So why did he feel like crying now? What was it that could he be wanting?

A soft sigh escaped him as he leaned back against the vast iron gate. Perhaps what he wanted, more than anything else, was to turn back time. His brow creased in a frown. If he did have that power, if he could somehow walk backwards through his life and live it again, how far back would he choose to go?

His first thought was that he would turn it back two days. Then, when that guard burst into Dragonsreach and blurted out the news from the Western Watchtower, and the Jarl turned to him and asked him to accompany Irileth to the tower and help her deal with what they found there, he would say no. _I've done enough for Whiterun, _he would say. _It's time for me to choose my own path, and walk it alone._

If only he had said that. Then he would have left that strange, open city on the tundra and travelled north to Windhelm, and he would have done what he'd come to Skyrim to do. He would never have left the Summerset Isles if he hadn't wanted to do what his father had so wanted to do himself, before he had died. If his father had been younger and stronger, then he would have returned to Skyrim and fought under Ulfric's banner. But now his father lay dead, and here Arvenrior was. He had left the only home he had ever known in order to take his father's place, and fight for Skyrim's independence. But now he found that there was a part of himself that wished he had never come.

If he had said those words to the Jarl, he would never have fought that dragon at the Watchtower. He would never have been the one to leap onto its back, raise his greatsword above his head, and bring it down with enough force to split the beast's skull. He would never have watched in dumb, astonished awe as the dragon's body turned to flame, or felt the rush of power and rage and will for domination as that flame became a river of light and flowed forward - into him. He would not have heard the whisper of the dragon's name - _Mirmulnir - _in every corner of his mind. And he would never have stood there in speechless confusion as that guard stepped forward and burst out the words that would turn his life upside down. _'I don't believe it. You're Dragonborn.'_

And then he would not be here, three-quarters of the way up Tamriel's highest mountain. He would not suddenly have a destiny he knew nothing about. That black dragon from Helgen would always have been the black dragon from Helgen to him. Never would he have known that it was Alduin, the World-Eater. The dragon who he was meant to kill. _Destined _to kill.

And now, as he looked out over the land of Skyrim, spread out far, far below him, it would just have been Skyrim. Perhaps it would have been the homeland of his parents. Never the land that he was fated to save. Never the land that wanted him to be a hero.

A wry smile flicked across his gold-skinned face. Hero of Skyrim. Was there a single mortal in the entire province who was a more unlikely choice? Perhaps Akatosh had made a mistake, choosing him to be Dragonborn. Perhaps he had thought that because Arvenrior acted like a Nord, dressed like a Nord, fought like a Nord and sometimes wished with all his heart that he had been born a Nord, that he wasn't actually a High Elf at all. Perhaps Akatosh had believed him to be a Nord, and had made him Dragonborn before he noticed the pale golden skin and the yellow-amber eyes and the pointed ears and the fact that he was half a head taller than the other people around him.

_What if the Divines were mistaken?_ he thought suddenly._ What if I could never defeat Alduin and save Skyrim? How could I - an Altmer - ever take the place of the legendary Nordic hero?_

And then another thought struck him. Perhaps, if he could, he would turn time back further. Perhaps he would turn it back to the day before he decided to go out hunting, back on the Summerset Isles. He would have stayed at home, or even persuaded his parents out with him. Perhaps then it could have been avoided. Maybe he would never have had to return home to see the sight that had made his heart stop and his kill - a fine young stag that he had tracked for three whole days - slip from his grip and lie forgotten on the path. He would never have seen the door hanging open, half off its hinges, the house lying empty, furniture scattered carelessly on the floor, blood staining the walls.

He would never have run through the town, asking everyone he met what had happened to his parents, and seen all those people shake their heads sadly and look away (if they were not Altmer) or else push him away and snap at him to get away from them, _traitor _(if they were Altmer) and finally, in desperation, turn to that old Imperial beggar who always sat slumped in the gutter with a bottle of mead in his hand, and beg him for answers. And he would never have heard the terrible news given to him at last - the news that Tormaer and Svada Storm-Watcher had been arrested by the Thalmor, taken away and executed the previous day, for the crime of worshipping Talos, the so-called false Divine.

He would never have lost the people who had taken him in when no one else would, who had raised him as their own, who had called him their son.

Or maybe he would go even further back. Perhaps for some reason his parents - his true, flesh and blood parents - would not have decided to go out fishing on that night when he was only three years old. Perhaps their boat would never have been overturned in that storm that had sprung out of nowhere. And it would not have taken his mother and father with it as it disappeared below the roaring waves.

_And where would you be then, Arven? _a voice whispered in his mind.

Arvenrior rose to his feet slowly. Behind him, the monastary of High Hrothgar threw jagged shadows out over the shining white snow. Below him lay a few drifts of puffy white could, and below that, Skyrim, peaceful and beautiful in the evening's calm. Above him, the sky stretched on forever, in every direction, further than he could possibly see.

He knew where he would be, had that storm never dragged his parents' boat down into the depths of the ocean. He would be on the Summerset Isles, not in Skyrim. He would never even have seen Skyrim. The callouses on his hands would have been caused by hauling in heavy nets, not by wielding a greatsword. The feeling of power that surged through him every time he lifted a weapon - he would never have experienced that. He would be a fisherman, not a warrior. The people he thought of as his parents would be a pair of High Elves like himself, not a pair of Nords.

Now he truly did travel back in time - at least, his mind did. It travelled back to the day he turned thirteen. In his mind, his father - his adopted father - once again brought him outside their house, sat him down on a rock, and daubed two streaks of dark red warpaint on each of his cheeks.

As Arvenrior had sat there, his eyes closed, enjoying the coolness of the drying paint on his sun-warmed skin, he had listened to his father's words. 'The warpaint is to show that you are a young warrior now, not a child,' he had said. 'It also is proof to the world that though your body may be that of a High Elf, your spirit will always be that of a Nord.'

Arven had opened his eyes, eyes the golden amber of the rising sun, and met his father's, the bluish grey of the sky on a rainy day in Evening Star. How he had wished his eyes could be that colour too. If only he could be a little shorter, with rounded ears and pale pinkish skin instead of yellow. If only...

One of the many, many reason that Arvenrior had loved Tormaer Storm-Watcher, more than he could ever love his half-remembered blood father, was because he had always known exactly what his adopted son was thinking. 'Don't you ever be ashamed of who you are, Arven,' Tormaer had said firmly. 'You are my son, and I know that you are so much more than what you look like and what your inborn skills might be. There was a reason I chose to give you two marks on each side of your face. It is because you live in two worlds, have two families, and two spirits. And that makes you different from everyone else who has ever walked Tamriel. You are not only different from everyone else. You are special.'

'Special?' the young Arven had echoed, and his future self, standing in the snows of the Throat of the World, smiled as he remembered his father's gentle chuckle and warm smile.

'You are a High Elf with a Nord's heart. You understand in a way that few others can that we are more than we are. Who we are is not decided before we are born, and our lives are not defined by our races. An Orc can be a thief. A Khajiit can be a mage. And a High Elf can be a warrior - and a strong, brave warrior too. It falls to us to decide out futures.'

The image faded from Arven's mind, and he reached up, tracing the red streaks on his cheeks with his fingertips. Even now, years later, he never let them fade. They were a part of who he was - just as his twin spirits were a part of who he was.

He stared at the land that lay below him. Wasn't this his future now? Hadn't it been chosen for him? Had everything his father ever told him been wrong?

Without thinking, he drew his sword. It was a weapon that had been made for Nord hands, and as such, it was a little too small for him. Of course, Adrianne and Ulfberth back at the smithy in Whiterun had never imagined that an Altmer, of all things, would ever stroll into their shop and ask to by a greatsword. He smiled to remember their shocked faces when they saw him enter, clad in the shining, resilient steel armour that the Jarl had given him. They had sold him the biggest blade they possessed. It was a simple weapon, plain and honest steel. The blade, though fairly new, already had a few nicks in it, some caused by meeting the weapons of Draugr, the largest from where a claw on that dragon's wing had scored across its surface. Arvenrior lifted it up into the air, and the fading red sunlight flashed on the blade, sending crimson streaks across the snow.

And suddenly he knew, with a firey certainty, that even if he had the power to turn back time, he never would. Not even to make his life so much simpler and easier. Not even to bring back his parents - both blood and adopted. Because this sword had been forged for a Nord to wield, and here it was, held by an Altmer. And here he was, with hands made to cast spells, gripping a sword instead. Even if his weapon had not been intended for him, it had still come to him eventually. And even if this path that he had walked, this path that had led him to stand on his mountain, overlooking this fierce and untamed country, with this strange new fire burning within his heart... even if this path were not the one that might have originally been intended for him, it was _his _path. It was the path that he had chosen.

He shook his long golden hair out of his eyes, and sucked in a lungful of the fresh, freezing air. _'FUS RO!' _he roared, in a voice that echoed like thunder around the mountain, and he watched the blue shockwave of his Shout rip through the sky.

This was who he was now. Arvenrior Storm-Watcher, son of both Summerset and Skyrim. Warrior. Thane of Whiterun. Dragonborn. Here he was, an Altmer with a Nord's heart, and, it seemed, a Dragon's soul. He still could walk his own path. He could decide his own future.

'My Thane?'

Arven turned his head to see Lydia standing behind him, a slightly apprehensive look on her face. He smiled. It had been clear from the start that his Housecarl had been a little put out at being ordered to guard a High Elf with her life. But he liked the Nord woman. She had thawed slightly over the past day, as they had travelled to High Hrothgar together. She was beginning to see past his appearance and realise that his heart was that of a Nord, and he admired her for being able to put her original prejudice aside.

'Yes, Lydia?' he asked her, giving her a quick smile.

She looked slightly embarassed now. Perhaps her uncertain expression a moment before had simply been because of his Shouting. 'I just wanted to be sure that you were all right, Dragonborn. You've been out here a long time.'

'I'm fine,' Arvenrior told her quickly, sliding his greatsword back into its sheath. 'I just needed to think some things through. I'm coming back inside now. I need to talk to Arngeir.'

As he traipsed back through the snow, his mind lost in thought, Lydia's voice took him by surprise. 'You should give your sword a name, my Thane.'

'A name?' Arven repeated - not because the idea confused him, but because her statement had caught him off guard.

'Yes. Most Nords do,' Lydia answered. 'My sword... my sword is named after my father.'

The simple confession made Arven want to punch the air with joy. Perhaps Lydia was actually beginning to trust him and respect him. Maybe, one day, she would think of him as her friend, not her superior.

'My old sword was called Dartwing,' he admitted, his smile widening slightly. 'My father had a blade named Wolf, because a wolf was the first creature he killed with it. The first thing I killed with my sword was a dartwing, when I dropped the thing on it by accident. It was a good weapon.' He sighed. 'The Imperials took it. But you're right. This one needs a name. I'll have to think of one.'

He pushed open the door to High Hrothgar. 'You should go and get some rest. It might be a long journey to wherever we have to get that Horn from.'

Lydia nodded. 'Goodnight, Dragonborn,' she said stiffly, and turned to leave.

'Oh, and Lydia...'

She hesitated. 'Yes, my Thane?'

Arven drew in a deep breath. 'Lydia, please stop calling me _my Thane _and _Dragonborn _all the time. My name is Arvenrior.'

_And my friends call me Arven, _he added silently. _I hope one day she will see fit to call me that._

She stared at him for a moment, then dipped her head slightly. 'Um, all right.'

'Goodnight, Lydia,' he prompted her.

'Goodnight, um, Arvenrior.'

They parted in the hall, the High Elf watching his Housecarl's retreating figure until she vanished into the darkness. Then he shook himself and went in search of Arngeir.

He soon found the Greybeards' spokesperson in the entrance hall, kneeling with his hands outspread in front of him and his head bowed. Arven paused for a moment, unsure of whether or not he should disturb his mentor. It seemed somehow wrong to distract him from such deep meditation.

He need not have worried. Arngeir lifted his head within seconds. 'Can I be of assistance to you, Dragonborn?'

Arven knew that there would never be any point in asking Arngeir to call him by his name. He smiled to himself. 'Arngeir, what's the Draconic word for _decide?'_

To his relief, Arngeir did not question why he was asking. '_Mahn,' _he replied quietly.

'What about _future?'_

'_Aluntiid, _Dragonborn.'

'_Mahn. Aluntiid,' _Arven repeated under his breath. 'Thank you, Arngeir.'

'You must not hesitate to come to me with questions, Dragonborn.'

Unsure of how to reply, Arven merely nodded. 'I'm going to see if I can catch some sleep now,' he said. 'Lydia and I will set out to retrieve the Horn of Jurgen Windcaller in the morning.'

Arngeir nodded slowly. 'Gods go with you. And remember - sky above, Voice within.'

Arven smiled. Somehow the simplicity of the saying calmed him. Yes, that was the way his life had to be now. This new power he had been given, this power over the _thu'um - _he needed to accept it and let it be, let it smolder within him. But even though he had changed, the world had not. The sky was still above him, endless and beautiful as ever. And no matter what else might happen, he was still Arvenrior Storm-Watcher.

'I will always remember, Arngeir.'

* * *

Dawn was breaking, turning everything golden - the snow, the rocks, the clouds. The morning had come at last, bringing so much in its wake. Hope. Uncertainty. Adventure. Danger. Arvenrior knew that this might be the last sunrise he ever saw. But despite that knowledge, he was not afraid. If he was destined to do this, then he accepted his destiny. And if his fate were his to decide, then this was what he had chosen.

He reached up and drew his sword, lifting it up to the light as he had done as night fell the previous day. Again, the rays of the sun flashed off the blade. Arven closed his eyes.

Lydia had been right, he decided. It wasn't right for a weapon not to have a name. This sword had already seen him through so much, after all, and it might well see him through a lot more. It was his friend. And he should be able to call his friends by their names.

'_Mahnaluntiid,' _he murmured. 'Your name is Mahnaluntiid.' He smiled. 'And I give you this name so that I might never forget what I must do. _Mahn dii siifur aluntiid._ Decide my own future. Always.'

There was a crunch of snow behind him, and he turned to see Lydia standing there. He almost laughed - this was twice now in twenty four hours she had suddenly appeared behind him whilst he was holding up his sword to the sun.

'Are we heading out, Dragonb-' She snapped off the end of the word. 'Arvenrior?'

Arven sheathed his sword, breathed in deeply, and turned to face her.

'Yes, Lydia,' he said quietly. 'Yes, I'm ready.'

Arvenrior still didn't know why he had felt like crying. But now that he thought about it, there was really not all that much to cry about, after all.


End file.
